The present invention relates to integrated circuits, in particular to the electrostatic protection of input ports for integrated circuits.
Integrated circuits (ICs) may incorporate dedicated circuitry to protect them against Electrostatic Discharge ESD events at their input/output I/O pads. The fulfillment of this ESD protection requirement may be challenging when broadband high-frequency signals are transmitted and/or received across the I/O pads of the IC.
In particular the implementation of ESD protections is of concern in transceiver circuits used in modern broadband communication systems, in which signals with power spectral distributions in the 1 to 100 GHz frequency range are transmitted across high-loss wire-line channels. Typical channels consists of copper traces on Printed Circuit Boards PCBs, connectors and cables, and they may have matched impedance at their ends, which is either defined by the transmission standard or selected by optimization such as for speed, power and signal integrity.